


I Love You, He Thinks

by blithelybonny



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Before the Draft, M/M, Miscommunication, Non-Explicit Sexual Content, OMG CP 14 Days of Love, Pre-Canon, poor communication, unintentional confession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 00:56:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9574769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithelybonny/pseuds/blithelybonny
Summary: It's the night before the draft, and Kent knows that this is probably the end.





	

**Author's Note:**

> And here I am, back in my angst-ridden home country. Also, a day late, so there may be a second story posted today. :D

Jack’s hand shakes a little as it skims down the length of Kent’s bare arm, a touch firm enough not to tickle, but light enough not to wake Kent up -- or at least it would be if Kent wasn’t already awake and trying to hold onto the very last moments of the best thirty-four days of his entire life. 

Because tonight is the end for them, no matter how much Kent wants to deny it. The truth is as inevitable as their shared pre-game peanut butter and jelly sandwiches: one of them is going to go first in the draft tomorrow, one is going to go second, and the bubble that’s been drawn around them is finally going to burst.

Kent’s as ready as he can be for the end, which is to say that he’s not going to break down in hysterical tears and beg Jack to carry on a long-distance closeted relationship. For one thing, it would be ridiculous to demand something they don’t even have now, as they’ve never put a label on what they do beyond their friendship. But mostly, Kent doesn’t think he can or should put himself out there with Jack more than he already has. He knows that he’s more into the romantic side of this thing than Jack is, and he’s kind of at peace with that fact, but if he was to really go for it, Kent doesn’t think he could handle the rejection.

He wants to keep Jack in his life, and he’s certain the only way to do that after tomorrow is to swallow the _I love you_ that’s been on the tip of his tongue every day since Jack leaned into him at a party, brushed back his ridiculous cowlick, and whispered “Kenny” in a voice so fond, Kent almost thought he’d made it up, today.

So he lies there in the afterglow, uncaring that he’s a little too warm beneath the covers, a little too sticky from the mess they’d made of each other, and pretending he’s asleep, while Jack tries to ground himself with careful caresses and instead quietly falls apart.

“You’ll love Las Vegas, Kenny,” Jack says.

If he wasn’t so good at pretending, Kent might have thought that Jack was really talking to him.

Jack’s voice is soft and tense; this is how he works through his issues: late at night, after they’ve got each other off, aloud and alone. “It’s bright, and it’s loud, and it’s glittering and gold.” He swallows audibly, and when he begins again, his voice is rough with emotion. “And Las Vegas is going to love you too.”

_Like Las Vegas won’t love_ you _, Jack,_ Kent thinks as hard as he can. _Everyone loves you._

Except that isn’t true, really. Jack’s too good at hockey not to have haters talking smack about him. Jack’s too quiet and too stoic and too intense not to have assholes and bullies teasing and closing ranks. Jack’s too prone to taking the losses hard and the wins even harder if he doesn’t feel his own performance was good enough not to have people who don’t understand and therefore don’t appreciate. So no, not everyone loves Jack -- but god, how Kent does.

Jack’s hand has made it down the line of Kent’s arm to his hip and curves now over the bone in a light grip. “New York’ll love you too, of course,” he continues, as he lifts each finger in turn and taps it gently against Kent’s skin. “The Islanders have a chance to build something, and I think you’d like that...being a big part of rehabbing something established.”

Kent might be young and dumb about a lot of things, but he knows himself at least enough to recognize that he _would_ love being part of a turn-around for an established team. It doesn’t feel like Jack’s trying to make it easier for when Kent inevitably goes second. The truth is, Kent’s known that he belongs in the second spot after Jack since the very first time he shot a perfect no-look pass for Jack to sink like magic into the net, and it doesn’t at all feel like self-deprecation or false modesty to say that Jack’s better than he is and deserves to go first.

“And,” Jack pauses for a long enough moment that Kent thinks he might be done talking, “you’d be closer to home.” New York hasn’t felt like home to Kent for a very long time, and Jack knows that, which must be why he squeezes Kent’s hip a little tighter and immediately goes on to whisper, “They’d always welcome you home, no matter where I am.”

Jack’s grip relaxes and his fingers begin a slow trail back up Kent’s arm again, as Kent tries with everything he has not to blow this. He has to swallow a sudden swooping sob that rushes up from an achy place in his chest, covers it with what he hopes is just a sleepy-sounding hum, and lets himself press back just that much into Jack’s embrace.

“I don’t, god Kenny, I don’t--” Jack’s breath hitches, and he wraps his arm around Kent’s chest, pulls him in even tighter, dips his head down so that it’s pressed into the small space behind Kent’s ear, and he chokes out, “I don’t want to go first, Kenny.”

Kent knows immediately, unequivocally that this is not something he should have heard. He knows that this is not something that Jack ever would have said to him if he thought Kent was actually listening to him because this is not something that Jack would admit to anyone at all, no matter how much he cared about them or trusted them. And he knows, therefore, that as much as it’s going to hurt, he has to roll over, meet Jack’s eyes, and give away the game.

Jack tenses immediately and starts to stammer out a few half-phrases and a few choice curses, but Kent just slides a hand up to cup Jack’s neck, thumb dragging easily back and forth along Jack’s jawline, and shushes him with a whispered, “Hey, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Jack bites out, teeth clenched and eyes narrowed. His breathing quickens and he starts to panic, but Kent knows at least a little bit what to do here, so he just begins to softly knead the back of Jack’s neck and takes slow, deep breaths until Jack matches him several nerve-wracking minutes later.

It’s too dark in the room to really make much of anything out, except for the little moonlight that sneaks through the curtains, but it doesn’t matter because Kent knows Jack’s face better than he knows his own, and he can see that Jack’s not angry with him for the pretense, but rather that Jack’s afraid of judgment for what he’s revealed.

“Is it Vegas?” Kent asks after another long moment.

Jack’s head twitches a sharp dissent. “It’s not Vegas. I don’t care about Vegas,” he says. “It’s--”

“--is it just, you know,” Kent interrupts, “is it _first_?” Because there’s a hell of a lot of meaning in “first” -- it’s not just Las Vegas, it’s not just settling down with a young, new team in a different country with a different set of rules and responsibilities; it’s so much more, especially for Jack.

“No, it’s not just _first_. It’s...Jesus, it’s-- okay, yes, I don’t want to go first, but, fuck Kenny, I also don’t want to go second or third or eighth or sometime in the second round or the fifth round or at all. I don’t--” He cuts himself off again, and his eyes are wide and searching Kent’s face for...for Kent doesn’t know what exactly, except that he’s suddenly and overwhelmingly terrified of not letting Jack see whatever it is. “I don’t want to go at all.”

And that just-- that doesn’t make any sense. Jack can’t possibly mean what he’s saying. Jack Zimmermann, who works harder than god, who pushes and strives and does more than anyone in the Q to prove his worth, prove his commitment to the game, prove he’s everything they always expected him to be and more, can’t possibly mean that he doesn’t want it anymore.

Kent says nothing in response for too long. (Much later, he’ll agonize over that first mistake.) He just looks Jack in the eyes, stares into their familiar icy blue depths searching for something that, deep down, Kent knows isn’t there, searching for the joke, searching for the truth. He watches as Jack’s eyes go wet and red-rimmed when he doesn’t allow himself to actually cry and feels the pricking of stupid, painful, unwelcome tears in his own eyes.

“Kenny, I don’t want to go at all,” Jack confesses again, and he sounds so small, so defeated, so battered and bruised.

For the briefest, barest moment, Kent gets angry. He gets angry that Jack thinks he can just say something like this, can say it and can sound like he actually fucking means it. He gets angry that Jack thinks he has a fucking choice about going or not going. It’s just for a moment, but it must be enough to show on his face because Jack closes his eyes and turns his head a little into the pillow and unintentionally a little more into Kent’s hand. (Much later, Kent will recognize it as his second mistake--and he’ll hate himself for it more than anything else.)

Kent curls his fingers a little and then stretches them out, scratching gently at the short, shaved bit of Jack’s hairline. He feels Jack shiver a little, and so he does it again, until Jack nuzzles in a little more and opens his eyes, the same terrifying question in them. Kent doesn’t have an answer. He has no idea what to say, either to make it better or worse or anything at all.

Jack sighs then and casts his gaze down just enough that he’s focusing on Kent’s lips. “It’s okay, Kenny. I guess I’m just...nervous,” he says.

“Me too,” Kent says, taking the out that’s offered and knowing as deep as his bones that he’s going to regret it later. “But we’ll be okay.” (Much later, Kent will wonder if his third mistake was actually that he said ‘we’ when he meant ‘you’. He’ll wonder if it might have made a difference. Because he’ll know that ‘we’ was a lie since he wasn’t and isn’t really all that okay.)

Jack kisses him then, a hard, bruising sort of thing that feels like pain all throughout Kent’s body. It startles a cry out of him that Jack parts his lips and swallows, taking it like it belongs to him, and Kent wonders with another sudden twinge in his chest if that hasn’t been true all along between them -- if all of Kent’s pain is Jack’s to take and hold and keep.

God, how Kent loves him and how Jack doesn’t really love him back. And...and maybe for now at least, as it’s all coming to an end, maybe that really is okay.

“C’mon Zimms,” Kent then encourages, rolling onto his back and tugging at Jack to climb on top of him. “C’mon baby, touch me.”

Jack exhales shakily and closes his eyes, even as he does straddle Kent’s legs and press their lower bodies together. “Kenny, I--” he breathes.

“I got you, Zimms. It’s okay, I got you,” Kent promises, as he raises his head and captures Jack’s lips in another tender kiss.

Jack whimpers and deepens the kiss, twisting his tongue against Kent’s.

Kent urges Jack into it, lets his hands slide down Jack’s back until his fingertips rest in the dip before the rising curve of Jack’s ass, and Jack huffs out a breath against Kent’s lips as he grinds his hips to chase the friction they’re creating.

_I love you_ , Kent thinks, but does not say because an “I love you” should never be a nasty little parting shot. It should never be something that Jack and his tortured brain would have to turn over and over and wonder and dissect and try to understand. “I love you” shouldn’t be a substitute for “goodbye.”

_I love you_ , Kent thinks, and lets Jack pull a last wrenching orgasm from him, as the sun slowly rises on the ~~thirty-fifth~~ first day.


End file.
